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Title: Who is the thief? Post by: Blazr on May 20, 2015, 11:46:32 AM Random thought. Take this hypothetical situation:
Person A finds out via brute force that the private key 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF 1111 contains 10BTC and tells person B the Bitcoin address and person D the private key Person B crafts a Bitcoin transaction that sends the 10BTC to Person C and gives that transaction to person D. Person D signs this transaction with the private key provided by person A and gives it to Person E. Person E broadcasts this signed transaction to the Bitcoin network. Who is the thief? Was it person A, who simply discovered the weak private key? Person B who crafted a Bitcoin transaction ? Person C who unknowingly received the stolen funds? Person D who signed a transaction he did not make with a private key A gave him? Person E who simply relayed a Bitcoin transaction? So legally and morally speaking, which person do you consider to be the thief? which of these acts is considered "theft" to you? Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Xialla on May 20, 2015, 12:05:49 PM well I have to read it couple of times:)
anyway from my point of view it is just person A. is ok to "hack something" or find weakness but he spread this information to other 2 person (B and D). It all starts with A so consequences go also behind A.. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: qwk on May 20, 2015, 12:12:37 PM So legally and morally speaking, which person do you consider to be the thief? which of these acts is considered "theft" to you? Simple. Noone.You can brute force a key? Bitcoin is done. Bitcoin being done, nothing of value has been stolen ;) Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Lauda on May 20, 2015, 12:14:00 PM This is quite simple. The thieves are B and D. Also that would include person C if he does not send the stolen funds back by request.
All A did was hack it. Hacking =/= stealing. Simple. Noone. No, it is not. You can brute force a key? Bitcoin is done. Bitcoin being done, nothing of value has been stolen ;) Read: hypothetical situation. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Blazr on May 20, 2015, 12:18:49 PM Well in my example the private key was predictable as you can see. We are assuming for whatever reason someone is storing their Bitcoins in this unsecure private key, lets pretend they purposely did this. To make it kind of easier to understand, instead of specifying the private key in hex, well specify it as an integer, so we'll pretend the private key was the number 17.
Person A has not commited any unauthorized access to any computer or "hacked" anything, he simply calculated the Bitcoin address for the private key 0, then 1, 2 etc until he reached 17 where he found a 10BTC balance. Has he done anything wrong? I don't think so, he hasn't tried to steal anything. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Blazr on May 20, 2015, 12:24:21 PM This is quite simple. The thieves are B and D. Also that would include person C if he does not send the stolen funds back by request. All A did was hack it. Hacking =/= stealing. Simple. Noone. No, it is not. You can brute force a key? Bitcoin is done. Bitcoin being done, nothing of value has been stolen ;) Read: hypothetical situation. About Person C, so you are saying that if someone sends you money, you have to send it back or you are a thief? what if someone continually sends you 1 satoshi every day and asks for it back? if you stop giving them back then according to you that would be theft, so could he get the courts and law enforcement involved? I don't think that refusing to return stolen funds that were sent to you is necessarily theft, especially if they were sent to you as part of some transaction which you provided goods/services to another party. All B did is craft an unsigned Bitcoin transaction using publicly available information And All D did was sign a Bitcoin transaction which he did not know was a fraudulent trasaction (I should have mentioned the only person who knows anything nefarious is happening is person A). Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: R2D221 on May 20, 2015, 12:24:32 PM This is quite simple. The thieves are B and D. Also that would include person C if he does not send the stolen funds back by request. All A did was hack it. Hacking =/= stealing. Simple. Noone. No, it is not. You can brute force a key? Bitcoin is done. Bitcoin being done, nothing of value has been stolen ;) Read: hypothetical situation. Hacking is one thing, but publishing your results from your hacks is another, which might be illegal in some places. Also, if Bitcoin is hypothetically hacked, then it's hypothetically done. I don't see the problem there. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Stedsm on May 20, 2015, 12:25:51 PM Well in my example the private key was predictable as you can see. We are assuming for whatever reason someone is storing their Bitcoins in this unsecure private key, lets pretend they purposely did this. To make it kind of easier to understand, instead of specifying the private key in hex, well specify it as an integer, so we'll pretend the private key was the number 17. Person A has not commited any unauthorized access to any computer or "hacked" anything, he simply calculated the Bitcoin address for the private key 0, then 1, 2 etc until he reached 17 where he found a 10BTC balance. Has he done anything wrong? I don't think so, he hasn't tried to steal anything. Person A didn't do anything wrong if he "found" that balance. It was his luck that he found it, and so that doesn't mean some kind of hack. Don't know why your question relates me to one of the directories which revealed BTC private keys of lots of addresses. Did you find anything? ;) Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Xialla on May 20, 2015, 12:30:20 PM Person A didn't do anything wrong if he "found" that balance. well but he did two things.) 1. found private key 2. distribute this to others and simply point 2 is not so cool at all.. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Blazr on May 20, 2015, 12:33:06 PM Well in my example the private key was predictable as you can see. We are assuming for whatever reason someone is storing their Bitcoins in this unsecure private key, lets pretend they purposely did this. To make it kind of easier to understand, instead of specifying the private key in hex, well specify it as an integer, so we'll pretend the private key was the number 17. Person A has not commited any unauthorized access to any computer or "hacked" anything, he simply calculated the Bitcoin address for the private key 0, then 1, 2 etc until he reached 17 where he found a 10BTC balance. Has he done anything wrong? I don't think so, he hasn't tried to steal anything. Person A didn't do anything wrong if he "found" that balance. It was his luck that he found it, and so that doesn't mean some kind of hack. Don't know why your question relates me to one of the directories which revealed BTC private keys of lots of addresses. Did you find anything? ;) So I think what you are saying is if you "find" a private key then thats OK, if you steal it then thats illegal. But then this gets even more tricky, what if you "found" the private key due to a bug, for example lets pretned there is some crappy wallet out there and every 1 millionth address it generates is the private key for the number 17. To me, if you found a bug and exploited it thats theft, but I'm not so sure it's theft if you simply decide to calculate the private keys for 1 to 17. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Blazr on May 20, 2015, 12:33:44 PM Person A didn't do anything wrong if he "found" that balance. well but he did two things.) 1. found private key 2. distribute this to others and simply point 2 is not so cool at all.. But it's just the number 17. When did distributing the number 17 become illegal or immoral? Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: ebliever on May 20, 2015, 12:36:51 PM Person A didn't do anything wrong if he "found" that balance. well but he did two things.) 1. found private key 2. distribute this to others and simply point 2 is not so cool at all.. But it's just the number 17. When did distributing the number 17 become illegal or immoral? When he did so knowing it could reasonably lead to the theft of valuable property from someone. It's like finding the key to someone's house, making copies and distributing them. That makes you culpable. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Amph on May 20, 2015, 12:36:58 PM This is quite simple. The thieves are B and D. Also that would include person C if he does not send the stolen funds back by request. All A did was hack it. Hacking =/= stealing. Simple. Noone. No, it is not. You can brute force a key? Bitcoin is done. Bitcoin being done, nothing of value has been stolen ;) Read: hypothetical situation. About Person C, so you are saying that if someone sends you money, you have to send it back or you are a thief? what if someone continually sends you 1 satoshi every day and asks for it back? if you stop giving them back then according to you that would be theft, so could he get the courts and law enforcement involved? I don't think that refusing to return stolen funds that were sent to you is necessarily theft, especially if they were sent to you as part of some transaction which you provided goods/services to another party. All B did is craft an unsigned Bitcoin transaction using publicly available information And All C did was sign a Bitcoin transaction which he did not know was a fraudulent trasaction (I should have mentioned the only person who knows anything nefarious is happening is person A). then the only remaining possible thief is d, who is playing the most in this situation, and handled the private key and he still has it at the end, there is also the possibility that his sign is not authentic Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: EcuaMobi on May 20, 2015, 12:37:44 PM This is quite simple. The thieves are B and D. Also that would include person C if he does not send the stolen funds back by request. All A did was hack it. Hacking =/= stealing. Simple. Noone. No, it is not. You can brute force a key? Bitcoin is done. Bitcoin being done, nothing of value has been stolen ;) Read: hypothetical situation. Hacking is one thing, but publishing your results from your hacks is another, which might be illegal in some places. Also, if Bitcoin is hypothetically hacked, then it's hypothetically done. I don't see the problem there. Except here it was not hypothetically hacked here. It's just that the original/rightful owner of those 10BTC used the private key 17 instead of a safe random key. In a real life problem similar to this one people wouldn't just distribute a private key or create, sign or broadcast a random transaction just because. They would do that to steal those coins and that would make them thieves. So OP should give us the hypothetical intentions of every user here to receive a proper answer. Regardless I'd consider user C to be a thief if he doesn't return the coins after being told what happened and if the original owner proves that with a signed message or by other means. The other users would be thieves if they did all that with the intention to steal the coins. About Person C, so you are saying that if someone sends you money, you have to send it back or you are a thief? what if someone continually sends you 1 satoshi every day and asks for it back? Regarding this, it's not the same case. First you can't compare dust/1sat with real value like 10BTC. Also in this case the original owner was unaware of his funds being sent to user C. In your 1sat example it's clearly intentional because there are several transactions. If someone receives 10BTC once against the will of the original owner then the only right thing to do is to return the coins (minus TX fees). If someone receives spam several times then of course he doesn't have to return it, he couldn't even cover the fees if he wanted to refund the coins. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Blazr on May 20, 2015, 12:43:38 PM Yeah I guess it really depends on what each persons intentions are,
Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Xialla on May 20, 2015, 01:04:40 PM Person A didn't do anything wrong if he "found" that balance. well but he did two things.) 1. found private key 2. distribute this to others and simply point 2 is not so cool at all.. But it's just the number 17. When did distributing the number 17 become illegal or immoral? just number? mathematically said yes, but in reality it is key. real key is also just some metal.. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: DannyHamilton on May 20, 2015, 01:29:52 PM . . . it really depends on what each persons intentions are, Exactly. If all the parties involved know exactly what is happening, then this is collusion and they are ALL thieves. Consider the following example: Albert discovers a key hidden under a rock next to a jewelry store. Albert gives the location of the key to Dennis. Albert gives the address of the store to Bob. Bob asks Dennis to have someone get a necklace from the store and deliver it to Cathy Dennis unlocks the door and tells Edward that he needs a necklace from the store delivered to Cathy Which one is the thief if:
Finding a key isn't illegal, but knowingly using the key to perpetrate a theft is. Using a key to unlock a door isn't illegal, but knowingly using the key to allow unauthorized entry and the removal or property is. Asking someone to deliver jewelry isn't illegal, but knowingly asking someone to deliver stolen jewelry to someone other than the rightful owner is. Delivering jewlery isn't illegal, but knowingly delivering stolen jewelry to someone other than the rightful owner is. Receiving jewelry isn't illegal, but keeping it if you know that it is stolen is. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Pathi on May 20, 2015, 01:34:22 PM I think A. He spread the private key.
Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Lauda on May 20, 2015, 01:51:13 PM About Person C, so you are saying that if someone sends you money, you have to send it back or you are a thief? what if someone continually sends you 1 satoshi every day and asks for it back? if you stop giving them back then according to you that would be theft, so could he get the courts and law enforcement involved? I don't think that refusing to return stolen funds that were sent to you is necessarily theft, especially if they were sent to you as part of some transaction which you provided goods/services to another party. Let's say robbers steal money from a bank, and leave it in front of your door and run. The cops show up asking for the money because they have witnesses that saw the robbers place it there.All B did is craft an unsigned Bitcoin transaction using publicly available information And All D did was sign a Bitcoin transaction which he did not know was a fraudulent trasaction (I should have mentioned the only person who knows anything nefarious is happening is person A). What happens when you don't return it? You become part of the theft. Good luck proving that the money being sent to you is a coincidence. Hacking is one thing, but publishing your results from your hacks is another, which might be illegal in some places. It might be illegal. This doesn't make him a thief, rather a criminal. Also, if Bitcoin is hypothetically hacked, then it's hypothetically done. I don't see the problem there. 1 private key being hacked =/= Bitcoin hacked. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: R2D221 on May 20, 2015, 01:53:05 PM Person A didn't do anything wrong if he "found" that balance. well but he did two things.) 1. found private key 2. distribute this to others and simply point 2 is not so cool at all.. But it's just the number 17. When did distributing the number 17 become illegal or immoral? Well, 17 is a prime number, so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime But seriously, though, it's not distributing “17” what's illegal, it's distributing “17 is the key to this address which contains 10BTC”. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: SpanishSoldier on May 20, 2015, 01:53:51 PM Morally everyone except C.
Legally, you have already stated... Yeah I guess it really depends on what each persons intentions are, Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: R2D221 on May 20, 2015, 01:56:45 PM Hacking is one thing, but publishing your results from your hacks is another, which might be illegal in some places. It might be illegal. This doesn't make him a thief, rather a criminal. Also, if Bitcoin is hypothetically hacked, then it's hypothetically done. I don't see the problem there. 1 private key being hacked =/= Bitcoin hacked. Sorry, this came from the assumption that Person A hypothetically found a vulnerability in Bitcoin itself and was actually exploiting it. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Bitcoininspace on May 20, 2015, 02:00:58 PM I'd say A as well. Nice read though. :P
Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: dothebeats on May 20, 2015, 03:00:27 PM The one who discovered a certain vulnerability cannot be deemed as a thief at all; the one who used the vulnerability and exploited it for his own gain is. Also, someone who was the keeper of the stolen goods cannot be deemed the most guilty of them if he doesn't know where the goods come from in the first place. If everyone on the situation knows what they are doing, and if their intentions are inclined to "steal" then all of them could be considered as thieves.
Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Xialla on May 20, 2015, 04:58:33 PM The one who discovered a certain vulnerability cannot be deemed as a thief at all; the one who used the vulnerability and exploited it for his own gain is. Quote Person A finds out via brute force that the private key 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF 1111 contains 10BTC and tells person B the Bitcoin address and person D the private key dude, if you will find you how to hack bank, and you will tell to one of your friends how to do it and to second one you will provide all software and your laptop..guess who will be guilty.. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Soros Shorts on May 20, 2015, 05:34:23 PM Morally everyone except C. Legally, you have already stated... Yeah I guess it really depends on what each persons intentions are, Person E is likely to be some random full node that person D happens to connect to in order to relay the transaction. How could E be morally guilty of anything? Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: fdylstyx on May 20, 2015, 07:54:24 PM Bitcoin, ultimately, is simply information. So, before we even have this conversation, we have to have this one: Can you "own" information? I say, at best, you can control private keys by keeping them secret. If you fail to keep them secret at any step (from creation to storage), then you don't "own" the bitcoins associated with them. I guess you could try to label a person "good" or "bad" by what they do with discovered information which was supposed to be kept a secret, but ultimately, I don't think you can label them a thief (nor punish them for how they use the information). A friend gives me the PIN to her credit card so I can shop for that friend while sick. I now "own" that information. I can even change the PIN and remove the friend's access to their own funds. I don't of course, as I'm a trusted friend. While shopping I'm sloppy in hiding the PIN while entering from a shoulder surfer. Outside in the parking lot I'm hit from behind and the card is stolen while I am rushed to the hospital and held under induced coma for 6 months. My friend has onset dementia and can't remember all her cards and that I had one in my possession. Thief takes expensive vacation and buys expensive items totalin $250K and ditches card. Bills from credit card company goes unpaid for 6 months. I recover but have no memory of robbery and recall of last few years is sketchy. Friend's condition has worsened and family members have set up P.O.A. and doctors have supported an assessment and judgement of non compos mentis on my friend. P.o.A. refuses to pay card company because there is no card, no idea where it went and who spent the money. Card company investigates and has video of both me and thief of card. Thief is long gone. I, who's memory is sketchy because of brain injury during robbery, accused of theft of card and sued for accounts owing. Cost of defense of something I can hardly recollect bankrupts me, ruining my credit rating, reputation but my lawyer prevails and I'm free to go on in my financially and mentally negatively impacted life. Who are the morally/leagally innocent in all this and who are morally/legally guilty? Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: ebliever on May 20, 2015, 08:04:35 PM Bitcoin, ultimately, is simply information. So, before we even have this conversation, we have to have this one: Can you "own" information? I say, at best, you can control private keys by keeping them secret. If you fail to keep them secret at any step (from creation to storage), then you don't "own" the bitcoins associated with them. I guess you could try to label a person "good" or "bad" by what they do with discovered information which was supposed to be kept a secret, but ultimately, I don't think you can label them a thief (nor punish them for how they use the information). So you don't think anything bad happened with Mt. Gox? I think common sense says yes, information can hold value and can be owned and stolen. Information is stolen and otherwise misused in a criminal manner many times every day. Patent law, copyrights, stolen passwords and electronic funds theft (not just crypto but digital fiat as well) - this is all "just information" but people clearly value it as real property. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Jeremycoin on May 20, 2015, 11:56:58 PM In my opinion, everyone is the thief except person C. Because he doesn't know anything about the stolen funds, so he is the victim here 8)
Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: dothebeats on May 20, 2015, 11:59:52 PM The one who discovered a certain vulnerability cannot be deemed as a thief at all; the one who used the vulnerability and exploited it for his own gain is. Quote Person A finds out via brute force that the private key 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF 1111 contains 10BTC and tells person B the Bitcoin address and person D the private key dude, if you will find you how to hack bank, and you will tell to one of your friends how to do it and to second one you will provide all software and your laptop..guess who will be guilty.. You will be charged of something but you will not be the most guilty. The one who used and applied the software to exploit the bank will be more likely to get imprisoned and the one who provided the software for exploitation would also be sent behind bars, though it would be a lighter charge because he somehow took part on the exploitation by providing the necessary software. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: nvaler on May 21, 2015, 12:55:32 AM Person A is my answer
Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: harkonnen on May 21, 2015, 01:03:59 AM Random thought. Take this hypothetical situation: Person A finds out via brute force that the private key 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF 1111 contains 10BTC and tells person B the Bitcoin address and person D the private key Person B crafts a Bitcoin transaction that sends the 10BTC to Person C and gives that transaction to person D. Person D signs this transaction with the private key provided by person A and gives it to Person E. Person E broadcasts this signed transaction to the Bitcoin network. Who is the thief? Was it person A, who simply discovered the weak private key? Person B who crafted a Bitcoin transaction ? Person C who unknowingly received the stolen funds? Person D who signed a transaction he did not make with a private key A gave him? Person E who simply relayed a Bitcoin transaction? So legally and morally speaking, which person do you consider to be the thief? which of these acts is considered "theft" to you? All of them. It's one criminal group working together. One might argue Person A is not a thief. Hacking itself may not be treated as thief, but stolen good(private key) is passed to third party. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: nvaler on May 21, 2015, 01:09:04 AM it could be anything then...lol...can someone make a demonstration of this please? thanks.
Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: bitbaby on May 21, 2015, 01:22:54 AM Random thought. Take this hypothetical situation: Person A finds out via brute force that the private key 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF 1111 contains 10BTC and tells person B the Bitcoin address and person D the private key Person B crafts a Bitcoin transaction that sends the 10BTC to Person C and gives that transaction to person D. Person D signs this transaction with the private key provided by person A and gives it to Person E. Person E broadcasts this signed transaction to the Bitcoin network. Who is the thief? Was it person A, who simply discovered the weak private key? Person B who crafted a Bitcoin transaction ? Person C who unknowingly received the stolen funds? Person D who signed a transaction he did not make with a private key A gave him? Person E who simply relayed a Bitcoin transaction? So legally and morally speaking, which person do you consider to be the thief? which of these acts is considered "theft" to you? All of them. It's one criminal group working together. One might argue Person A is not a thief. Hacking itself may not be treated as thief, but stolen good(private key) is passed to third party. Yeah I'd say the same. But A started the theft when he passed on the private key to D, if he was really brute forcing or whatever to find a vulnerability he shouldn't have given the key which contained 10 btc to D. Although, he himself didn't steal the coins but if he hadn't provided any keys to anyone, no theft would have occurred. So morally they all did something which they shouldn't have and legally if they were found doing this all will be charged with stealing together as aiding and abetting a theft is also illegal. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: thebenjamincode on May 21, 2015, 01:28:09 AM i think its very hard to find a bitcoin address private key
that's why i also think its none :D Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Erza on May 21, 2015, 01:42:19 AM i think its very hard to find a bitcoin address private key that's why i also think its none :D I dont think that will be hard for a pro hacker. It will be like piece of cake for them to find out the address private key. My answer is A because he is a person that spread this rumour for the first time and ask other people to hacked it and C is not guilty because he doesnt know anything :D Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: johnyj on May 21, 2015, 01:45:09 AM In reality, from money laundering law enforcement point of view, C is usually the one to blame, because the dirty money ends up at C's address
So, either C return the bitcoin to the victim, or he enter the blacklist of police watch list, that's how it happens in reality. Law enforcement have no way to know any concrete information about A B D and E, in fact they can all be some lines of codes A similar questionnaire: Person A issued government bonds of 10 billion dollar and give them to person B Person B bring those bonds to person C and Person C create 10 billion dollar and purchase those bonds from Person B Person B then take those 10 billion dollar and give them to Person A Person A then spend those 10 billion dollar and hand out salary to person D Person D then pay 30% of those salary to person A, and person A use those money to pay bonds interest to person C Person B is the stock holder of Person C Who is the theif ;D Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: R2D221 on May 21, 2015, 02:08:33 AM In reality, from money laundering law enforcement point of view, C is usually the one to blame, because the dirty money ends up at C's address If that is true, then the law is pretty stupid, in my opinion. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: ebliever on May 21, 2015, 02:33:29 AM Bitcoin, ultimately, is simply information. So, before we even have this conversation, we have to have this one: Can you "own" information? I say, at best, you can control private keys by keeping them secret. If you fail to keep them secret at any step (from creation to storage), then you don't "own" the bitcoins associated with them. I guess you could try to label a person "good" or "bad" by what they do with discovered information which was supposed to be kept a secret, but ultimately, I don't think you can label them a thief (nor punish them for how they use the information). So you don't think anything bad happened with Mt. Gox? I think common sense says yes, information can hold value and can be owned and stolen. Information is stolen and otherwise misused in a criminal manner many times every day. Patent law, copyrights, stolen passwords and electronic funds theft (not just crypto but digital fiat as well) - this is all "just information" but people clearly value it as real property. Yeah, something bad happened with MtGox, it's called fraud, but that has nothing to do with what is being discussed in this thread. MtGox customers didn't hold Bitcoin private keys, they held MtGox IOUs. MtGox customers had certain expectations of what kind of service MtGox was providing them. Those expectations were clearly not met. I never said that information couldn't hold value, I suggested that you can't "own" it in the traditional sense of what we consider "ownership". As I said, you can control information in the sense that you can keep it secret. I also said that we could label someone "good" or "bad" if they do something with information which was supposed to be kept secret. OK, we agree that the loss of funds at Mt. Gox was fraud. But did not the fraud consist of the misuse or abuse of information? I agree that information "ownership" is a challenging concept that needs to be defined carefully (and is worth pondering if I get insomnia tonight. :)) For one, information can be duplicated with minimal effort, compared to the duplication of matter/energy property. But ownership of information, or rights relating to a body of information (with limits on duplication and dissemination of such information), has long been recognized relating to copyright of intellectual works, patents and so forth. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: johnyj on May 21, 2015, 02:40:12 AM In reality, from money laundering law enforcement point of view, C is usually the one to blame, because the dirty money ends up at C's address If that is true, then the law is pretty stupid, in my opinion. C must find a way to prove that he does not aware of the illegal transaction, but that's very difficult You can easily prove that you know something, but you can't easily prove that you don't know something Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: harkonnen on May 21, 2015, 04:03:37 AM Bitcoin, ultimately, is simply information. So, before we even have this conversation, we have to have this one: Can you "own" information? I say, at best, you can control private keys by keeping them secret. If you fail to keep them secret at any step (from creation to storage), then you don't "own" the bitcoins associated with them. I guess you could try to label a person "good" or "bad" by what they do with discovered information which was supposed to be kept a secret, but ultimately, I don't think you can label them a thief (nor punish them for how they use the information). Information can be owned. For an example, your password is yours. Don't tell anyone and it's yours forever. It's just impossible to own by sole owner once secret info leaked out. With your logic, following is very true. An intruder in your house is pointing a gun at you(brute force). You have to tell him the combination and location of safe that holds your gold and stack of cash. You failed to keep your secret, therefore you don't own the wealth associated with the info(combination and location). And intruder didn't do anything illegal. Or your lover(whore) tricked you to spell the combination and secret location of your safe. She then tells her friend to get it. Her friend doesn't know the source of the info, and get the money. And you are telling me the bitches are not guilty, but you because you failed to keep the info secret. Non-sense. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: harkonnen on May 21, 2015, 04:12:40 AM In reality, from money laundering law enforcement point of view, C is usually the one to blame, because the dirty money ends up at C's address If that is true, then the law is pretty stupid, in my opinion. The law is not stupid. Person C is stupid. Stupidity of not knowing is guilty these days. You got pulled over for speeding, but you can't say you didn't know the speed limit. Judge can consider the situation, and lower the penalty, but you are still guilty of not knowing. "Person C unknowingly/unintentionally received stolen fund" Come on, don't be so naive. In reality and in most of cases, Person C knows where this fund came from which is not so legal source. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: sirnoah on May 21, 2015, 05:55:45 AM all of them?
Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Lauda on May 21, 2015, 06:17:40 AM The law is not stupid. Person C is stupid. You're talking nonsense. Stop with this. The chances of someone sending you 10 BTC by mistake are the same as some thief sending it to you.Stupidity of not knowing is guilty these days. You got pulled over for speeding, but you can't say you didn't know the speed limit. Judge can consider the situation, and lower the penalty, but you are still guilty of not knowing. "Person C unknowingly/unintentionally received stolen fund" Come on, don't be so naive. In reality and in most of cases, Person C knows where this fund came from which is not so legal source. As I've already stated Person C did nothing wrong. His wrongdoing will start if he refuses to cooperate. all of them? No. Stop replying before reading the thread. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: 12coins on May 21, 2015, 06:18:42 AM The thieves are B and D. ?
Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: npham on May 21, 2015, 06:20:20 AM Person A is my answer
whats the answer? Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Kprawn on May 21, 2015, 06:23:13 AM The question :
What did person A do to stop any criminal actions being done, from the decision he took? If I pick up a bag of money, I must hand it in at the police station. If I told someone else about it, and they do something criminal with it, I am party to the crime and if it can be proven in a court of law, I would be charged as a accomplice. The better decision would be to report it, and then claim a possible reward from the owner, if it was offered. Would you not want the same treatment, if the role was swapped and you were the owner of the BTC? Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Lauda on May 21, 2015, 06:26:06 AM The question : The thread is asking about the thief. What he did doesn't make him a thief. It could make him a criminal if he was charged with enough evidence.What did person A do to stop any criminal actions being done, from the decision he took? If I pick up a bag of money, I must hand it in at the police station. If I told someone else about it, and they do something criminal with it, I am party to the crime and if it can be proven in a court of law, I would be charged as a accomplice. The better decision would be to report it, and then claim a possible reward from the owner, if it was offered. Would you not want the same treatment, if the role was swapped and you were the owner of the BTC? Person B and D are the thieves (and potentially C). E being a node that isn't aware of anything can't be blamed. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: cinnamon_carter on May 21, 2015, 06:44:53 AM When i see published evidence this actually took place , i will give you my answer.
There are known weak, published privkeys that sometimes get a little btc however like the one brain wallet returns if you leave all the spaces empty. Import that key into your wallet (maybe better yet a test wallet) and you will see some btc appear and vanish from time to time.... While hypothetical questions are often productive , may i suggest someone examine the transactions on the blockchain at the address i mentioned and see who is getting the btc in and out and by what method, I have not had time to do it yet. Last time i checked there are up to 115792089237316195423570985008687907853269984665640564039457584007913129639936 priv keys possible. No known technology can crack this right now and maybe ever. edit one in your watered down example how do we know that person a,b,c,d,e are all different people ? Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: louise123 on May 21, 2015, 07:06:26 AM Random thought. Take this hypothetical situation: Person A finds out via brute force that the private key 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF 1111 contains 10BTC and tells person B the Bitcoin address and person D the private key Person B crafts a Bitcoin transaction that sends the 10BTC to Person C and gives that transaction to person D. Person D signs this transaction with the private key provided by person A and gives it to Person E. Person E broadcasts this signed transaction to the Bitcoin network. Who is the thief? Was it person A, who simply discovered the weak private key? Person B who crafted a Bitcoin transaction ? Person C who unknowingly received the stolen funds? Person D who signed a transaction he did not make with a private key A gave him? Person E who simply relayed a Bitcoin transaction? So legally and morally speaking, which person do you consider to be the thief? which of these acts is considered "theft" to you? I stopped at B. That is not possible. You cannot create a transaction for coins you do not own. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Blazr on May 21, 2015, 08:32:15 AM Random thought. Take this hypothetical situation: Person A finds out via brute force that the private key 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF 1111 contains 10BTC and tells person B the Bitcoin address and person D the private key Person B crafts a Bitcoin transaction that sends the 10BTC to Person C and gives that transaction to person D. Person D signs this transaction with the private key provided by person A and gives it to Person E. Person E broadcasts this signed transaction to the Bitcoin network. Who is the thief? Was it person A, who simply discovered the weak private key? Person B who crafted a Bitcoin transaction ? Person C who unknowingly received the stolen funds? Person D who signed a transaction he did not make with a private key A gave him? Person E who simply relayed a Bitcoin transaction? So legally and morally speaking, which person do you consider to be the thief? which of these acts is considered "theft" to you? I stopped at B. That is not possible. You cannot create a transaction for coins you do not own. Of course you can, you just can't sign it without the private key. Here is one I made up that spends the first 50BTC Satoshi mined: Code: {Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: louise123 on May 21, 2015, 08:37:59 AM Random thought. Take this hypothetical situation: Person A finds out via brute force that the private key 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF 1111 contains 10BTC and tells person B the Bitcoin address and person D the private key Person B crafts a Bitcoin transaction that sends the 10BTC to Person C and gives that transaction to person D. Person D signs this transaction with the private key provided by person A and gives it to Person E. Person E broadcasts this signed transaction to the Bitcoin network. Who is the thief? Was it person A, who simply discovered the weak private key? Person B who crafted a Bitcoin transaction ? Person C who unknowingly received the stolen funds? Person D who signed a transaction he did not make with a private key A gave him? Person E who simply relayed a Bitcoin transaction? So legally and morally speaking, which person do you consider to be the thief? which of these acts is considered "theft" to you? I stopped at B. That is not possible. You cannot create a transaction for coins you do not own. Of course you can, you just can't sign it without the private key. OK, then in that case, I would say that the thief is person A, because he knowingly gave away a private key that didn't belong to him. Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: Kyraishi on May 21, 2015, 04:05:42 PM Random thought. Take this hypothetical situation: Person A finds out via brute force that the private key 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF 1111 contains 10BTC and tells person B the Bitcoin address and person D the private key Person B crafts a Bitcoin transaction that sends the 10BTC to Person C and gives that transaction to person D. Person D signs this transaction with the private key provided by person A and gives it to Person E. Person E broadcasts this signed transaction to the Bitcoin network. Who is the thief? Was it person A, who simply discovered the weak private key? Person B who crafted a Bitcoin transaction ? Person C who unknowingly received the stolen funds? Person D who signed a transaction he did not make with a private key A gave him? Person E who simply relayed a Bitcoin transaction? So legally and morally speaking, which person do you consider to be the thief? which of these acts is considered "theft" to you? All of them. It is like someone - Person A - had the combination to a safe. Person B opened the front door. Person C kept an eye on things. Person D opened the safe Person E got the cash. It was a gangbang ;) Title: Re: Who is the thief? Post by: NeuroticFish on May 21, 2015, 04:16:37 PM Random thought. Take this hypothetical situation: Person A finds out via brute force that the private key 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF 1111 contains 10BTC and tells person B the Bitcoin address and person D the private key Person B crafts a Bitcoin transaction that sends the 10BTC to Person C and gives that transaction to person D. Person D signs this transaction with the private key provided by person A and gives it to Person E. Person E broadcasts this signed transaction to the Bitcoin network. Who is the thief? Was it person A, who simply discovered the weak private key? Person B who crafted a Bitcoin transaction ? Person C who unknowingly received the stolen funds? Person D who signed a transaction he did not make with a private key A gave him? Person E who simply relayed a Bitcoin transaction? So legally and morally speaking, which person do you consider to be the thief? which of these acts is considered "theft" to you? A and B. If you find a weakness, you are cool. If you share it to do evil, you are a villain. And yeah, if you use the information to steal, even if it's not you who found it out, it's still theft. Of course you can, you just can't sign it without the private key. Here is one I made up that spends the first 50BTC Satoshi mined: At first read this was an absolute surprise. At second read it was a "ah! lol! now you have to get Satoshi to help out with the rest ... if he still has the priv key..." |